On paying attention
Floating was my favorite. Certainly in the top 5 things I miss most from land life. Immersed in a shallow pool of highly salinated water warmed to your exact body temperature, your body floats effortlessly in the complete stillness and consuming darkness — all senses deprived of input. Alone, in the quiet, weightless blackness, floating in what could very well be outer space, a direct and solemn witness to the ever shifting contents of consciousness, a transcendent meditation. It was my favorite.
Not only for the beautiful, saturated stillness and the unique and remarkable absence of all external stimuli, but most for the way in which the sensory deprivation reset — reignited— all senses upon completion.
The first step back out on to the sidewalk is an avalanche of light, sound, temperature, objects and sensation— an orchestra of experience that certainly danced around me before, but evaded my attention.
The brief absence of the foundations of daily existence sharply tuned me into the universe of experience that is available in a moment of simply standing on a sidewalk on a quiet street in the breeze.
It was a renewal, an awakening, an astonished and potent awareness to what is; what has been there all along, quietly humming away just below the threshold of my daily attention.
Living on the water has created a similar renewal.
An acute awareness to facets of the earth, sensation, experience, to time, to life, that like the electromagnetic spectrum itself, was always present but mostly out of the scope of my visibility, absorbing only a mere fraction.
I’ve always seen the moon, of course. I would make a ritual to lock eyes with it as often as it was visible from our house under often cloudy skies in Seattle.
But I never quite appreciated just how quickly it moves through its phases. Its astonishing, actually, to watch the swift evolution of its waning and waxing,every night a markedly different variation — always growing, always changing, always in perpetual motion.
It points to the obvious but easily overlooked nature of time itself, and the speed and rhythm in which it carries us all along.
We tie our sense of time to Mondays, to the upcoming weekend, to holidays, to begrudging old age. Our clocks are work and rest, nostalgia and anticipation, busy and bored, later and someday, next and back then. Mostly oblivious to or in resistance of the salient reality of our ephemeral, precious days.
With the moon as your metric, a new understanding of time begins to appear: both a daily spectacular illustration of the passing seasons of existence, and a grounding reminder that this moment is all we ever truly have.
This direct and humbling regular encounter with the pace of nature invites you to, like it, be at once both permanently amid transition, and eternally present.
Its a significance I am just beginning to truly see— or perhaps, sense, in a way beyond sight— and one I am certain will continue to deepen, with each passing evening that I look up.
This afternoon, waiting for the full moon to rise over the treetops and into our vision once again, walking along the small neighborhood streets of Coupeville in the warm spring sun, I am struck again by the overwhelming beauty, sensation, and experience, available everywhere I stand and look. Have you ever noticed how fragrant the air on land is, being bathed in young leaves and lush grass and warm soil?
Flowers announce themselves all around with vibrant colors and explosions of texture, transforming the air into sweet perfume. Long shadows dance across freshly mowed lawns with golden sunbeams splashing through freshly budding branches swaying gently. Church bells ring in the distance, while work gets done in the gardens and life responsibilities go on, and birds coast high along the breeze freckling the sky while the earth meets my foot with each step, punctuating my connection to everything.
It is just a walk around the block.
But even a walk around the block, when you’re paying attention, is a miracle.
I am grateful for everything that teaches me that there’s more to see hiding among the very thing I’ve been looking at for ages; that beneath all that is familiar or approaching the edge of mundane, there is an untouched universe waiting to be noticed and absorbed.
I am grateful for the prolonged absence of the ordinary; for stepping out into the world with senses finely recalibrated, reborn, and highly receptive to every last sunbeam, aroma, and song carried through the air I breathe.
I am grateful for the gift of paying attention; for daily celestial grounding; and the profundity and significance held in a spring afternoon walk, and a full moon.
***
Taylor
